Blinding
by TamaraHefner
Summary: Set after the GotG movie. The Collector has had his collection rebuilt and is now searching for a new assistant - this time a convenient one, who won't blow up everything he owns. Is Rae, a slave who hasn't had much luck with her previous masters, a good choice? - Collector x OC


**Let me introduce this story by apologizing for not updating my other stories. (I will do it someday. I promise.) And now, hi! This is yet another new story about something that sparked my interest: The Collector. **

**Warnings: I chose the rating M because of some slightly violent themes in this chapter. If you are easily triggered, please proceed with caution. **

Rae had been standing where her master had put her on display on the large slave market for what felt like hours now. Her legs had started to ache, her throat was as dry as paper and her head kept bobbing down because she had grown so tired of standing up straight. Everytime she drifted off into a sleep-like state, her master pulled roughly at the tight chains around her ankles to make her jerk up again. This went on and on but some time later her body seemingly stood on its own. She didn't feel any aching anymore, so she just closed her eyes and thought about how her life could have been if...

...if Vysoc hadn't taken her from her home. She didn't remember her home, but she imagined it to be full of sunshine and smiling, happy people who looked just like her, with radiant white skin in a strong contrast to golden cat-like eyes, golden lips and golden hair. But that was all just in her head, a world she could only dream of since she had been taken away by the age of four by a man who had earned his wealth by stealing people, turning them into slaves and then selling them on the slave market for thousands of units.

Vysoc wasn't a bad man, though. On the contrary, he raised the young girl like a loving father. He gave her the name Rae. _Because you remind me of sun rays_, he used to say. Everytime she thought about her past, she remembered these years as the best time she has had in her life. By the time she had become twelve years old, Vysoc told her, that it was time to sell her to a "master". Rae understood what that meant, he had prepared her for it from the very first moment, but she felt a pain in her chest that she couldn't ignore.

She remembered how nervous she was when she stood in a row with many other slaves that Vysoc was about to sell. Everytime a customer showed interest in her she glanced over to him and he gave her a reassuring smile, which made her relax a little bit. It didn't take much time until one customer showed a real interest in buying her. He looked at her for a moment and walked straight up to Vysoc without looking at the other slaves. Rae tried to hear them talk but the market was too loud. She only knew that the man had bought her when Vysoc unlocked the chains around her wrists and smiled at her for one last time.

As it turned out, her new master only needed a punching bag. She was beaten everyday without ever doing anything wrong. After four years of too many broken bones and too many bruises, Rae finally decided to flee.

She wasn't free for long, though. Bad luck seemed to follow her, and she was captured by a group of "business men", who decided to sell her again as soon as her bruises had healed.

And Rae was sold. This time to a seemingly nice man, who had decided that she would be a perfect canvas for his art, because of her radiant white skin. First he only drew on her body, with wonderful colours that Rae hadn't even seen before. She wasn't ashamed of being naked while he painted on her, because he never looked at her in a sexual way, he only saw her as his canvas. He took pictures of his art and he allowed her to look at them. At this time, she felt special. His art made her even more beautiful and the patterns he drew on her body were wild and colourful. Her master even let her go outside and Rae thought that this was what other people called freedom. Everytime she came back to him he greeted her with a big smile and told her about his new ideas for paintings. This lasted for two years. Then something changed. Her master did no longer seem content with just drawing on her body with a brush. At first, he didn't paint on her for several days at all, until he approached her and told her that his new piece would be something very special.

He had obviously decided that red had to be the new primary colour of his artwork. So he exchanged the brush with a knife and chained Rae up. And then a cut followed another cut, one always deeper than the previous ones. When he was done, he took one final photo and simply said: "I think I need a new canvas."

Many days passed in which he ignored Rae again, many days in which the red cuts became bulged scars on her once untainted white skin.

The chains around her ankles were pulled again and Rae opened her eyes slowly to look directly at someone's exquisite jacket. Rae had to look up to see the person's face. It was a man, whose appearance was quite unusual. His hair and eyebrows were white and he was dressed in the finest clothes she had ever laid eyes on. He stood so close that Rae could catch his scent, which she couldn't quite identify. It was not unpleasant, though. Her master stood next to the man and said: "I told you that she is an exquisite beauty. And she has been trained very well."

The man looked at her master with an unimpressed face and asked him with a monotone voice: "Then why are you selling her?"

"Well, Sir, the poor thing crashed through a glass wall and now her body is covered in ugly scars all over. I mainly bought her because of her untainted skin, for my art, you know. But now... I have no use for her anymore." Rae felt the urge to scream out, that he was a liar and he should burn in all the hells of the galaxy but her eight years of training and good manners taught by Vysoc stopped her.

"What is your name, dear?" Rae was surprised that he addressed her, and not her master and answered him right away. "I have been given the name Rae, Sir."

"Hmm. I see. Tell me, Rae. Are you good at keeping a large... household clean?" The man had paused before he said the word household and that made Rae wonder.

She was just about to open her mouth to ask what he meant by large, but her scumbag master started speaking first. "I have been told that she is very efficient. I'm sure she can cope." Rae wanted to slap him, kick him, shout at him, bite him with her fangs, but she didn't. She stayed nice and calm and kept studying the strangers features. This was normally considered to be rude, but Rae was too curious and it didn't seem to bother him. He even seemed to be slightly amused by her obvious curiosity.

"50.000 Units.", the man said, his eyes fixed with Raes'.

"Deal!" Her master had probably not thought that he'd get so much money for her, after he had ruined her appearance almost entirely.

With a grin that was plastered almost all over his face, her master unlocked her chains and turned to the stranger. "Always a pleasure to finish a business with you, Mr Tivan!"

"Let's hope that she can keep the things you promised.", the man said with his empty expression. "Follow me... Rae."

And Rae obeyed.


End file.
